she was a member of the
improvisational comedy troupe
The Dog Day Players and the a
cappella group The Rockapellas,
was the creator of the comic
strip Badly Drawn Girl in The
Dartmouth (the college’s daily
newspaper), and was a writer for
the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern
(the college’s humor magazine).
Kaling graduated from Dartmouth
in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree
in playwriting. She was a classics
major for much of college and
studied Latin, a subject she has
been learning since the seventh
grade. Kaling lists the comedy
series Dr. Katz, Saturday Night
Live, Frasier and Cheers as early
influences on her comedy.
Personal Life
Kaling has a close friendship
with B. J. Novak, whom she
met through writing for The
Office. The two dated on and
off while writing and acting on
the show, sometimes mirroring
the on-again, off-again nature
of the relationship between their
respective characters Ryan
Howard and Kelly Kapoor. Novak
is the godfather of Kaling’s
firstborn daughter.
In 2012, Kaling was included in
the Time 100 list of influential
people. In 2014, she was named
one of Glamour magazine’s
Women of the Year.
Kaling is a 1 percent owner
of the Welsh football team
Swansea City A.F.C. based in
Swansea, Wales in the UK.
In December 2017, Kaling
gave birth to a daughter.
On June 10, 2018, she
received the honorary degree
of Doctor of Humane Letters
from Dartmouth College in
Hanover, New Hampshire.
Career
While a 19-year-old
sophomore at Dartmouth,
Kaling was an intern on Late
Night with Conan O’Brien.
Kaling said she was a terrible
intern, “less of a ‘make copies’
intern and more of a ‘stalk
Conan’ intern.”[18] Kaling has
said that she never saw a
family like hers on TV, which
gave her a dual perspective
she uses in her writing.
She thinks the “everyone
against me mentality” is
what she learned as a child
of immigrants. She named
her Mindy Project character
Mindy Lahiri after author
Jhumpa Lahiri.
After college, Kaling moved
to Brooklyn, New York.
Kaling said one of her
worst job experiences was
as a production assistant
for three months on the
Crossing Over With John
Edward psychic show. She
described it as “depressing.”
During this same time,
Kaling performed stand-up
comedy.
AUGUST 2019 | WWW.WISHESH.NET